Flight 93 Crash Site

Rural Pennsylvania Crash Site of the Fourth Jet Commandeered on September 11th

This aerial photograph shows Flight 93's impact crater
in filled land at the edge of an reclaimed strip mine.
These photographs
show the crash site in more detail.

Flight 93
crashed at the edge of a strip-mining quarry in rural Pennsylvania,
about two miles due north of Shanksville, PA,
in Stony Creek township.

Flight 93's high-speed, nose-down plunge into the loose fill
of the reclaimed strip mine
produced a broad deep crater with narrow tapering ends
corresponding to the jetliner's wings.

We located the site of Flight 93's crash on a satellite map,
using an photograph released as an exhibit as part of the trial
of Zacarias Moussaoui.
The impact crater borders a portion of Skyline Road --
a dirt road on the edge of the strip mine.
We then estimated the position of the crater on a USGS quad map,
which provides only a vague representation of Skyline Road.

According to our analysis, the location of the crater,
plus or minus a few seconds, is:
40Â°03'03" N latitude
78Â°54'17" W longitude

The red dot shows the approximate location of Flight 93's crash
on a USGS quad map.

In addition to the primary crash site, there were at least two
other debris fields separated by miles,
and some large debris was hundreds of yards from the impact crater.
The following reports were published within three days of the attack.

"A second debris field was around Indian Lake about 3 miles from the
crash scene. Some debris was in the lake and some was adjacent to the lake.
"More debris from the plane was found in New Baltimore, some 8 miles away
from the crash. "State police and the FBI initially said they didn't want
to speculate whether the debris was from the crash, or if the plane
could have broken up in midair."
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Additionally, Flight 93's debris field covered anywhere from three
to six miles and, as CNN reported, pieces of the plane were found
six to eight miles from the main impact area:
"Authorities also said another debris site had been cordoned off
six to eight miles away from the original crash debris site."
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State police Maj. Lyle Szupinka said investigators also will be searching
a pond behind the crash site looking for the other recorder and other debris.
If necessary, divers may be brought in to assist search teams,
or the pond may be drained, he said.

Szupinka said searchers found one of the large engines from the aircraft
"at a considerable distance from the crash site."

"It appears to be the whole engine," he added.

Szupinka said most of the remaining debris, scattered over a perimeter that
stretches for several miles, are in pieces no bigger than a "briefcase."
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An article in the Independent from a year after the crash
describes the debris fields.

A sector of one engine weighing one ton was found 2,000 yards away.
This was the single heaviest piece recovered from the crash, and the biggest,
apart from a piece of fuselage the size of a dining-room table.
The rest of the plane, consistent with an impact calculated to have occurred
at 500mph, disintegrated into pieces no bigger than two inches long.
Other remains of the plane were found two miles away near a town
called Indian Lake. All of these facts, widely disseminated,
were confirmed by the coroner Wally Miller.
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The following map summarizes the location of the most well-documented
debris fields: